


Once Upon a Duscar

by Settiai



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Critmas Exchange, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Nostalgia, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/pseuds/Settiai
Summary: Sometimes, every now and then, Jester wished that she could turn back time.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Marion Lavorre | Ruby of the Sea
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2019





	Once Upon a Duscar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/gifts).



Sometimes, every now and then, Jester wished that she could turn back time.

Of course, she always felt bad when the thought crossed her mind. Compared to the rest of the Mighty Nein, or at least most of them, she'd had a great childhood. She'd had a mother who loved her and a fancy home to live in and lots of interesting people to see every single day, and she'd gotten almost anything she'd ever asked for.

She wasn't like Beau or Caleb or Fjord or Nott or Yasha. There weren't things that she'd do differently, to try and change the course of her life. Jester's life had been good. It had been so good, better than... well, better than almost anything.

And the thing was, she missed it. There wasn't anything she wanted to change or make better. She just wanted to relive it, to go back to a time when things were so much simpler than they were now. Before everything had changed, and she'd found out what the world was really like. She'd been innocent then, naïve in a way that she wasn't now even if she still pretended she was sometimes around the others just to confuse them.

She supposed that it was a lot to ask.

"What's wrong?"

Jester blinked and turned away from the window she'd been staring out, quickly giving her mother the biggest, brightest smile she could manage. "Nothing's wrong, Mama!" she said. "I was just thinking."

Marion shot her a skeptical look, but she didn't argue with her even though Jester knew she probably saw through her smile. Her mama had always been going at being able to tell when she was being honest or not, better than most people were. The rest of the Mighty Nein were getting better at it, being able to tell when she was hiding something behind her smile, but they weren't nearly as good as her mama. Well, most of them weren't. Caduceus sometimes was, but then again he was... well, he was Caduceus.

"Come and sit with me," Marion said, sitting down on the bed and patting the empty space beside her. "We don't have long, and I'd like to talk while we have the chance."

There was a knowing look on Marion's face, but she didn't call her out on hiding things. Still, Jester couldn't help but flush slightly before walking over to sit down. She only had a little bit of time to spend at the Lavish Chateau while the others went shopping and drinking and probably stealing and whatever else they were doing. She shouldn't be wasting time woolgathering.

Marion reached over and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into a loose hug. Jester could tell it was meant to be brief, just a tiny moment of comfort before they talked, but the moment she felt her mama's arms around her she couldn't help but turn and wrap both of her arms around her in a tight hug of her own.

It had been too long since the last time Jester had had the chance.

There was only the briefest hesitation on Marion's part before she hugged her back just as tightly as Jester was hugging her. It was warm. It was familiar. It was _safe_. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, everything felt right.

And, just like that, Jester was transported back into the past. She was a little girl again, hugging her mama goodnight before she was tucked into bed. And then, in a flash, she was older but still a girl, giving her mama one last hug before she ran as far away as she could get from the only home she'd ever known. Then it shifted, and she was a young woman coming home for the first time in what felt like ages but really hadn't been, a bit older and a little more scared but still barely more than a girl.

Then it was over, and Jester was back to being herself. As if her mind had never even wandered in the first place.

"I've missed you," Marion said, pressing a kiss against Jester's forehead even as she let go of her with her arms. "Tell me everything."

For a moment or two, Jester was tempted to do just that. So much had happened since the last time the Mighty Nein had been in Nicodranas, and she wanted more than anything to tell her mother absolutely everything that had taken place. She wanted to tell her mama about everything bad that had happened to her and let her fix it, like she had when she'd been a little girl with a cut on her hand or a bruise on her knee or stain on her brand new dress.

Except she couldn't. She just couldn't.

Jester wasn't a fool, no matter what people thought sometimes. She knew that her mama was well aware that her life was dangerous now, that the things she did with the Mighty Nein weren't anything like the adventures she'd dreamed about as a child. She wouldn't be surprised by anything that Jester told her. If she wanted to tell her about the fear and the loneliness and the pain and the blood and the grief and the anger and... well, she could. She could, and Marion would smile at her and do her best to make things better.

But that wouldn't be fair to her mama, not really. It wouldn't be fair to either of them.

Whether she liked it or not, Jester wasn't a little girl anymore. It took more than a hug from her mama or a laugh from the Traveler to make things better. And there were some things that she couldn't just forget and push to the side, things that were too important to stop clinging to no matter how much she'd like to do just that. If she told Marion about some of those things, there wouldn't be anything she could do to help make them better. It would just hurt her too, like it hurt Jester. And that was the last thing Jester wanted to do.

She supposed that was what it meant to grow up.

"What do you want to know?" Jester asked, planting a bright smile on her face that she hoped made it all the way to her eyes even though she had her doubts. "I could tell you more about our house. Or about the drinking contest some of the others were in, that was fun." She paused, thinking for a moment before adding: "Oh! We found some really interesting things in the Happy Fun Ball this time! I could tell you about those."

Marion shot her a knowing look, as if she knew exactly what Jester was doing. Then she smiled one of her small, bittersweet smiles that Jester had only seen a few times when she was younger but seemed to see more and more lately.

It looked a lot like the smile Jester saw whenever she looked in the mirror recently.

"Tell me whatever you'd like," Marion said softly. "I'm here to listen to anything you want to tell me."

Jester smiled back at her, fairly certain her smile matched the one on her mama's face. Then she took a deep breath and threw herself into storytelling. A safe story. A fun one.

For now, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/settiai)


End file.
